


The World Long Gone

by MoonCatcher



Category: Johnny's Entertainment
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Friendship, Gen, Ryo really loves books
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 20:21:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11215593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonCatcher/pseuds/MoonCatcher
Summary: A small prequel to Aurora.Ryo and Jin hide from Mummies and find stuff.





	The World Long Gone

"Hey, slow down, I can't hear them anymore!"

Jin's words faltered, more huffs of heavy breath than clearly articulated message, bouncing off the cold, stone walls around in a grotesque echo.

The tunnel seemed endless. Drowned in darkness and moist stench of mold and lack of fresh air. It had taken three hits with a stone into the lock outside to get the access door open, and while they'd closed it the best they could behind their back, Ryo couldn't get rid of the prickly feeling crawling up the back of his neck.

Fucking Mummies.

Every time they finally started as much as settling into the little of comfort the life on the street had to offer, there were Mummies sniffing them out from around a corner, and all their illusion of comfort was once again exchanged for mad dash into the next temporary safety. And the whole scenario repeated over and over again, way too many times since they'd left the Zone.

Ryo had lost the count.

Last time they'd found their hideout in a garage. This time, the closest door happened to be an old, possibly collapsing, infrastructure tunnel.

Ryo took a couple of more long steps, gradually slowing down his pace until he stood still. His chest burnt and he was gasping for breath so wildly that his lungs actually protested against the sudden rush of air. In the dark of the tunnel, white lights danced behind his closed eyelids, and he felt wetness trickling down his cheeks. Shit. He wasn't crying.

His throat tightened.

His head span, the lights in front of his eyes raising nausea in his stomach. He retched, but nothing but a trickle of saliva came out.

"I think we're safe," Jin said, but through the buzzing inside Ryo's skull, his voice sounded distant.

When a hand touched his shoulder, Ryo jerked away. He clutched his flashlight, pointing its beam of light at whatever had managed to get so close to him.

Shit, he needed to stay alert. At any given moment.

There were things out there that didn't care whether he was exhausted or out of breath or on the verge of breaking, or not.

"Hey, it's me." Jin stood there in the light, hands up in an understanding gesture of surrender. His own flashlight was switched off. His cheeks were red and his chest was heaving as much as Ryo's own. They'd both just run for their life, after all. "I didn't mean to scare you."

Ryo lowered the flashlight, letting the beam shine on the dirt covered concrete floor.

"Not scared," he muttered.

'Terrified' would be a better word, perhaps.

He wasn't going to admit it, though. Not even to Jin. Admitting it aloud would make the feeling way too real.

Good thing was Ryo didn't have to say things aloud. Not things like that. Jin understood.

They were both terrified.

Being terrified was still preferable to living in the Zone though. At least out here, in the old world, being terrified was their own choice.

Jin nodded. "Good."

"Yeah. Good," Ryo repeated.

"I think the safest thing to do is to stay here for now," Jin said. He switched on his flashlight and started scanning the closest surroundings, while Ryo stood there, still kind of frozen in his post-close-Mummy-encounter haze. Watching Jin move around in what looked almost like a practiced dance of checking the walls and rotting piles of garbage scattered on the floor, was surprisingly soothing. At least one of them was able to shake off yet another near death experience and switch his brain to necessary precautions, like no rats or the walls being steady enough not to bury them while they slept. And perhaps some of the stuff lying around might be useful---that part was doubtful, but it never hurt to double check.

Ryo had nearly tripped over some of that shit as he'd run down the tunnel, but only now was he slowly starting to see those things for what they were. Not just obstructions on his way to safe his life.

They were pieces of someone else's life once left behind.

Furniture. Clothes. All swallowed by bulky, ashen lumps of mold. The same image Ryo had seen one too many times all across the neighborhoods he and Jin had gone through. The world wasn't dying in fire as some had predicted. It was being slowly eaten away by mold.

There were framed paintings that used to hang on someone's wall once. A long time ago. In another life. Now they were nothing but a part of a useless pile of rotting crap.

Ryo poked one of the piles with the tip of his heavy boot. The top part collapsed in a cloud of dust and fluttering cobwebs.

Books.

His heartbeat made a little jump that had nothing to do with running and nearly suffocating this time.

The excitement rushed through him too fast though. A closer look and he could see the full damage of time and less than suitable location. Humidity and insect had seized the paper, and whatever had been left after they had been done, had become a vulnerable, pathetic host for the ever present mold. It tickled in Ryo's nose, itching and irritating until he sneezed.

Another part of the pile wavered and toppled over.

"Have you found something?" Jin called from a couple of feet away where he's shaken off his backpack and was now busy with his own pile of molded garbage.

Ryo glanced at the ruined books. "Not really."

"This place is the worst possible storage," Jin groaned. "Who the hell thought it was a good idea?" It was a rhetoric question, because the answer was always the same. People had saved their possessions at places that couldn't conserve them longterm simply because no one expected a longterm solution would be necessary. People had expected to come back in a few weeks and resume their lives. From what Ryo and Jin had seen, most of those people had never had a chance to come back.

They had either got infected, or---Ryo was itching to think, 'or worse'---or they had been swiped into the Zone and their previous life didn't matter anymore.

He swept the flashlight over the collapsed pile, not really looking for anything useful, just quietly mourning the loss. A rusty baseball glove was sitting on the top of a box. One of the kids in the Zone used to have a similar one and they'd play catch until an adult came by and took the ball away, scolding them and telling them to go be useful somewhere. There wasn't much space for childhood and games behind the walls of the Zone. And the old glove right there, abandoned in a tunnel along with other dear family possessions, was a proof that after the outbreak there hadn't been much space of those things outside the walls either.

Then his eyes landed on an open page, partially buried under another book.

He kicked the top one away, took off his backpack, and squatted down to take a better look.

A photoalbum. The pictures, once probably bright and full of colors, were now faded and strangely grim in their yellow and brown tones. Ryo brushed over one with his thumb, smearing a layer of dust and mold with his gloved finger.

A young woman in a kimono smiled at him, her face a little blurred and crooked as the mold had taken away a bit of the print. She looked pretty nevertheless. Soft features and a cute, shy smile.

She was a face of the world that no longer existed. A world that for kids like Ryo or Jin had always existed only in stories whispered in muffled voices by those who dared speaking about it. Ryo loved those stories more than anything.

While speaking about the past they were, for Ryo and some others, better at describing the desired future than fear-filled empty promises made by the Zone government.

Ryo looked at the picture again, then carefully turned the page. Then another, and one more. All of them were holding little memories of what must have been a happy life. He grinned when he came across a picture of a little boy with what could've been the very same baseball glove he'd found here.

Pieces of old lives lay scattered all across the city, the country, the whole world. Ryo had seen more of those than he would've liked during the last year since he and Jin had left the Zone, but this was the first time he was able to make a clear connection between a thing and its past.

He reached for the glove.

Then turned to Jin.

"Hey, Jin?"

Jin straightened up. He'd tied a scarf over his face so he wouldn't inhale too much dust or mold, so his voice sounded hushed. "Yes?"

Ryo waved with the glove. "Wanna play?"

Jin tugged down the scarf and laughed. "Is that seriously the most useful thing you found?"

Ryo shrugged. "I guess?"

He was still worried about the things out there. Chances were they'd run into more Mummies the moment they'd leave the tunnel. However, if being terrified was the price to pay for freedom... well then.


End file.
